Good Thursday morning. I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook Audio Briefing. Stay tuned after the show for a message from Business Roundtable.

There will be some counter programming this evening. The Democratic debate is tonight in Houston. You know what else is tonight? President Donald Trump's speech to a room full of House Republicans at the party's retreat in Baltimore.

Trump's speech will be pooled on TV at 7.10 p.m.

We've got the latest on the impeachment dumpster fire that's smoldering.

Our Hill colleagues, Heather Kegel, Andrew DeZadario, Sarah Ferris, Melanie Zanona, and Kyle Cheney

have been doing terrific work laying out how House Democrats

impeachment process is a complete mess. They've also laid out how Democrats have tried to clean

it up in the last 12 hours or so. If you've missed it, here's the crux of it all. House Democrats

have been all over the map on what they are trying to do when it comes to impeachment. They can't decide if they're impeaching the president, let alone where they are

in said process. Here's the stated theory behind this non-impeachment impeachment play. It's that

so-called frontline Democratic lawmakers, those with tough races in Trump districts don't have to become a part of an

impeachment proceeding. So this got us thinking about two things. How do Democrats feel about their

leadership strategy? We asked a bunch of smart House Democrats, and the best answer we got was

Dems want a clear stance from leadership. Frontliners don't need space. They need

information so they can make a decision for their district. And the second question is, how can

Democrats up the pressure? Remember this. Any Democrat can go to the House floor and demand a vote

on impeaching the president. Lawmakers could do it daily if they wanted to.

Letters from caucuses clearly aren't going to cut it.

Democrats haven't even scratched the surface of the pressure they can exert on their leadership.

Here's the latest on guns.

White House aides believe Trump will not back background checks, but will throw together

a mental health package with some other popular items and ask for its passage. The New York Times

...